Lest We Forget
by sapphire-child
Summary: A memorial service is held for the unknown dead, an empty bottle is discovered, an airborne SOS is let fly and a flight manifest is edited once again.


**Title:** Lest we Forget  
**Characters:** Claire, Charlie, Hurley  
**Spoilers:** up to Through The Looking Glass with speculation for season four  
**Summary:** i "Not all of us have survived since the crash. But there is new life too, and with it there is hope. We are alive. Please don't give up on us." /i A memorial service is held for the unknown dead, an empty bottle is discovered, an airborne SOS is let fly and a flight manifest is edited once more.  
**Original Post Date:**21/10/2007  
**Disclaimer:** Lost does not belong to me in any way shape or form. I write only out of a sincere love for (some of) the characters. The quote in the cut is by Thomas Campbell.

* * *

_When the dark night seems endless, please remember me…  
-Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennit_

* * *

It took the better part of the day for Claire to collect the varying contents of wallets, purses and carry on bags of everyone who had died in the crash, so she didn't have much time to put them in any sort of order. She had been surprised, almost shocked at the Doctor's lack of interest in holding a memorial service – he hadn't seemed quite so callous before when he had been looking after her just after the crash. Maybe he'd just seen too much death in the past week?

She knew that she certainly had.

Throughout the memorial she managed to keep her voice strong and steady by thinking about how important this was to her. Being pregnant had proved to have supreme disadvantages here – she had now experienced three (or was it four?) days of utter uselessness as others put themselves to work. While they slaved away she sat and watched them, hands resting on her tummy. This memorial was the first truly useful thing she felt she'd done since she got here and so she wanted to make it as special as possible. The unnamed dead deserved to be remembered she thought, a fierce sort of sadness flickering in her heart as the fuselage burned behind her.

After the memorial was over, she'd gone through the manifest with Boone and Hurley and crossed off all the dead and before too long, she'd found herself sitting alone again, feeling melancholy. They had crossed out dozens and dozens of names on the manifest. How many of their names had she read out tonight? Half? Less? How many more people had been lost without anyone even knowing their names? Surely she hadn't collected every single ID for ever single person who had died…

Despite herself, she finally began to cry the tears that she had been bravely holding in all day since finding the wedding album for Steve and Kristin. She was mourning she realised, mourning for the people who had nobody now left to remember them. She began to wonder, if she had died in the crash would somebody else have even bothered to hold a memorial service? Would anyone have found her passport and wondered who she had been? Would they have known that she had been pregnant and that her unborn child had died along with her?

Suddenly a figure came into her blurred vision and she hastily wiped her tears away. A closer look made her realise that it was Charlie, loping aimlessly through the wreckage, restless as ever. Seeing that she had noticed him, he began to pick his way over, smiling easily. Claire tried to stem her tears but her hormones seemed to have gotten the better of her now and they continued to slide down her face, cold and uncontrollable.

"Hey," he said by way of greeting, lowering himself onto the sand and huddling into his jacket. He'd had the hood drawn up over his head as he'd been wandering but now he pulled it back so that she could see his face properly. "Your memorial was really good. I'm glad somebody thought to do one."

"Thanks," Claire managed to whisper, embarrassed at the state she was in. "I thought that somebody should do it so I told Jack, but he didn't want to do it and neither did anybody else. I know I'm not exactly the world's best public speaker but…"

"You did fine," Charlie said firmly but then he frowned, realisation dawning on his face as the firelight made the tears on her cheeks glint. "Claire? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Claire sighed, brushing at new tears. "I just can't seem to stop myself from crying. Bloody hormones."

Charlie hesitated before digging in his pockets and withdrawing a travel pack of tissues which he offered to her with a wry smile.

Claire stared at them for a moment, amazed, and then she laughed. "Where did you get them from?" she asked as she took one and dabbed at her tear-stained cheeks.

Charlie shrugged, looking somewhat embarrassed as he re-pocketed the little bag. "I found the packet in the middle of a pile of carry on bags that had been emptied out onto the sand. I guess nobody else thought to hang onto the tissues but…well my nose has been a bit funny since I got here so I nicked these before anyone else could."

"Do you get hay fever or something?" Claire asked sympathetically.

"Yeah something like that," Charlie sighed, scratching the side of his nose with his thumbnail. "I don't think the pollen here agrees with me very much. I'll be coming out in rashes next."

"Well at least it's only hay fever," Claire offered. "You could be worse off. Like..."

"Like all those poor sods we just said goodbye to," Charlie supplied and Claire nodded, feeling the terrible weight of her sadness once again. "Well at least they weren't just left there to be forgotten forever. You gave them all one last chance to shine tonight luv. And really, who better to do the memorial service than you?"

"What d'you mean?"

Charlie shrugged, his cheeks colouring. "Well…you've got this brand new life growing inside of you and…I dunno." He shrugged again, struggling for words. "It was a really good idea – closure and all that for all of us with survivor's guilt and all that. And…well I'm glad you were the one to do it and not Jack. I can't see him doing something like that. Or if he did he wouldn't have sounded like he meant it. You could tell when you were reading out the names that you meant everything you were saying about them – even though you didn't know any of them. It kind of gives me a pretty good idea of what sort of person you are."

Claire's throat went dry. "And what sort of person am I?"

Charlie reached out and – in a sudden gesture of previously unsurpassed affection – he grasped her hand and squeezed it briefly.

"A good one," he said simply.

* * *

_Letters that you never meant to send, get lost along the way…  
-Name by The Goo Goo Dolls_

* * *

There was something niggling at the back of Charlie's brain and it had been there for several days now. When the raft left, they should really have a message to give to the outside world, to let them know what had happened to them all. Who was alive, who had died, all of that. They still had the flight manifest somewhere – Charlie was pretty sure that Hurley was guarding it now. The only problem was – who should write the message? He mused on it for a long time as he rummaged through the remaining plane wreckage for wire to help build the raft – just as Michael had requested.

Charlie might've been good with rhyming couplets but he had never had cause to write an SOS before. And what if several people wanted to write it and ended up arguing about what should be put in? As he rummaged through a pile of miscellaneous junk, chasing the tail end of a piece of wire, his hand closed on something cool and hard.

For a moment his heart leapt, thinking it was the empty jar he had imagined peanut butter in for Claire all those weeks ago. As it turned out, it wasn't a jar at all but a bottle. Amazingly it was still in one piece – not even a chip or a crack in the rim. It had probably been filled with wine originally he thought as he turned it over in his hands, considering it. Probably some lucky bugger had found it, drunk the wine and then thrown the bottle on the junk heap.

And then quite suddenly it hit him square between the eyes.

The bottle. He could fill the entire bloody i bottle /i with messages. It would be excellent for keeping the messages all dry even if it did get accidentally dropped over board. On top of that it was poetic – and very appropriate under the circumstances. How many books had he read, movies he'd seen, had somebody on a deserted island sending out a message to their loved ones by putting it in a bottle?

Whoever had thrown the bottle into the junk heap must have known that one man's trash is another man's treasure Charlie thought blissfully as he tucked it under his arm and trotted back to the shelter he shared with Claire, his brain tripping over itself in it's eagerness to finalise the details of his plan.

Claire was sitting down cross legged when he got there, her son was pressed against her shoulder and she was burping him – evidently he'd just been fed. When she saw him she smiled tiredly but Charlie barely spared a moment to greet her properly before beginning to rummage amongst his things.

"What are you looking for?" Claire asked, looking puzzled. "And why on earth have you got a bottle under your arm?"

"I just had the best idea," Charlie said excitedly, still rummaging. "I found this bottle and I was thinking that when the raft goes, we could fill it with messages from everyone. If I can just find enough paper and a couple of pencils and pens and stuff…"

"Messages in a bottle?" Claire echoed looking suddenly excited. "Hey, that i is /i a good idea! Hey, if you can hang on a minute until I've burped Aaron then I'll donate some of the pages from the back of my diary…"

"Thanks," Charlie beamed, her praise making him feel far happier than the offer of extra paper. "I just figured, you know, when they get rescued they can maybe send all the notes off to our family and friends stuff – let them know that we're still alive."

"Well I think it's a wonderful idea," Claire smiled shyly at him and Charlie grinned back at her. Claire didn't often compliment him and when she did it always made him feel ten feet tall. Being able to make her smile, knowing that Claire was proud of him for doing something good made him feel like he was actually making a difference in this world.

Maybe in the end, he would leave behind something worth remembering after all.

* * *

_Together now we can be saved…  
-Two Brothers by Charlie Pace_

* * *

Claire didn't often have strokes of brilliance, epiphanies or clever ideas. So whenever she did she became very proactive in her approach to whatever challenge had been thrown her way – which is why she was so upset when Charlie had so strongly rejected her idea to put a message on one of the tagged seabirds that she had seen flying over the beach.

_We are alive. Don't give up on us._

When Charlie had read her message out loud, Claire had almost choked up. She had spent more than an hour composing the note as Charlie held onto the seagull for her – writing and rewriting until she was finally satisfied with it. Letting Charlie read it was her way of letting him know that she trusted him, that she was there for him – never before had she let him read anything that she had written. And never before had she heard so much emotion in his voice – even when he was singing or composing his music. Something in her words seemed to have truly struck a chord in his heart, as though she had found a piece of him and had managed to put it into words and say it back to him again.

She reached out and took Charlie's hand gently, both of them watching the bird fade into the horizon and then finally, Charlie squeezed her hand back.

"I'm scared," he said eventually, his voice little more than a strangled whisper. "I don't want to die here Claire – not in this place. I don't want to be forgotten."

"You're not going to die," Claire promised him, turning to him and meeting his gaze. There was fear in his face, half-hidden behind his eyes, forming lines at the corner of his mouth. "And if you ever did then you wouldn't be forgotten. At least not by me."

Charlie's lips twitched with the want to smile at her. "Well as long as I knew that you'd remember me, I think I might just be able to die happy in whatever horrible way Des sees me go next."

"Whatever happens we'll fix it," Claire said firmly. "He's been able to do it this far – he can keep on doing it."

Charlie let out a shaky exhalation and folded his arms around her waist. Claire responded in kind, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him to her. Pushing her face into his neck, she felt him do the same.

"We're gonna get out of here one day soon," she said fiercely, and something warm began to spill onto her neck. Claire's breath caught when she realised that Charlie was crying. "You'll see," she continued, her voice trembling. "All of us are going to be saved – just like you always told me we would be."

"I wish I could believe that," Charlie whispered miserably against her neck. "Sometimes it feels like we're going to be here forever."

"Just keep on believing for a little bit longer then," Claire said pleadingly, tightening her hold on his neck. "We can't stop believing it Charlie, just because we're scared. We're going to make it through and we're going to go home again. But I need you to believe so that _I_ can keep on believing too." A solitary tear ran down her face to wet Charlie's neck. "Please?"

"I'll keep believing," Charlie consented. "For just as long as you do."

He squeezed her tightly for a moment longer and then let go. The fading sunlight made his eyes shine bright with unshed tears as he finally allowed himself to smile at her.

"I really hope that you're right Claire," he said, bringing a hand up to touch Claire's cheek. "I hope that we can still be saved."

And with that, he leant in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

* * *

_Please tell me that it's fiction, tell me it's just a lie  
Whatever you choose to tell me, please say he didn't die...  
-Missing You by Jem_

* * *

The Oceanic logo was fading in the corner from where it had been damaged by water. The edges were fraying. The creases and folds were softening. Soon enough the paper would probably start to fall apart.

But Hurley had a job to do. He was the one who had taken it upon himself to keep the flight manifest up to date. Crossing off the unknown, faceless dead had been a grim job. The sheer number of them was enough to turn anybody's stomach. And it hadn't gotten any easier. There had always been more crossed out names than non-crossed out ones – but every new name that was scribbled out still made Hurley feel like crap.

He hadn't known Scott Jackson well – wasn't even sure how he'd ended up speaking at his funeral for that matter. He was one of the names that hadn't really hurt too much when he scratched a biro line over him. Shannon had been harder to cross off the list – not because Hurley had liked her or been friends with her or anything, but because Sayid had been moping at her grave as he'd crossed her off, hanging out just in his peripheral vision. He'd had a hell of a time rewriting the tailies back into it only to cross half of them out again within less than a month.

It seemed obvious with the state of affairs on the island that before too long he would be crossing another name off the list. He'd thought that crossing off Libby had been hard at the time, but nothing could have made him feel worse than crossing out the one name that he had never really thought he'd have had to.

The line of ink trembled across the page, slowly striking through each letter.

C-H-A-R-L…

Hurley paused, took a deep breath and then drew the pen sharply across the page in one swift motion.

ESPACE.

Swallowing heavily he swiftly scanned the list one last time to make sure that he'd already crossed out everyone else that had died recently, and he folded the piece of paper up again with trembling hands, feeling sick to his stomach as he put it back amongst his things.

The guy had been nearly indestructible. He'd been blown up, shot at, beaten up, hung from a tree and nearly fallen off a cliff – and that was only in their first month here! Even when he'd been facing his imminent death he had still somehow managed to smile, to be with his girl and love his kid like he was going to be able to watch the tyke grow up and now…well now he was dead. Hurley had crossed his name off the manifest. He was dead.

It had taken him nearly ten minutes just to find the right name because he'd been looking under Charlie, not Charles. He had very nearly hit himself in the head with frustration at his simpleness when he'd realised that he'd been looking at his friends name all the time and not realised.

One day maybe, somebody else would have to take over this job, he thought morosely as he stared at the bag that held the crumpled manifest. Not that Hurley was planning on dying anytime soon but then, Charlie hadn't exactly planned on dying either had he? He should have a back up really – just in case. Mentally he began to run through his options, glancing about the camp as he did so for inspiration.

Jack was automatically out – he didn't really give a crap about stuff like that in lieu of other more important leader type stuff. Kate would probably do it for like, a day, and then forget about it. Sawyer was Sawyer – he wouldn't see the point in it. Desmond was still too messed up over Charlie's death to be of use to anybody. Jin didn't speak or read English and Sun probably wouldn't understand it properly. Sayid would think it was pointless too, Hurley thought bleakly – nothing more than a romantic gesture that would be wasted on those who had passed.

Claire?

She'd been the one who had done the memorial service when they'd first crashed. Hurley remembered her asking him to help her out with it and Boone had jumped in too – he'd always been even more annoying than Charlie with the over-helpfulness. That was when Hurley had first come into contact with the manifest, as he'd watched Boone cross off all the names that Claire had read out to him while he held the torch to provide the light. Shortly after, Sawyer had pilfered it for whatever reason and Boone had let it go, obviously not really caring what happened to it. Maybe he should have taken better care of it, Hurley thought grimly. Being as he was now one of the names that was crossed out. The only way the dude was still remembered now was because of the stupid piece of paper that Hurley had dragged out again and taken with him to try and convince Claire to be his second in command.

"What is it?" she asked, looking mildly interested. It was definitely a positive sign, Hurley hoped, she hadn't been interested in anything lately – except for looking after Aaron.

"It's the flight manifest," he explained. "Boone crossed off the first lot of people who died here but ever since then I've been crossing off the names of everyone else who's died…" Claire's eyes clouded over at that and Hurley pushed on desperately, trying to make her understand why he was telling her this. "Well anyway. I'm not planning on, you know, dying any time soon. But just in case I do…you know. I was wondering if maybe you might keep on doing it? Crossing people off it I mean. We'll never keep track otherwise, for when we get rescued and I kinda think we should."

Claire's expression flickered then, and for a moment she seemed on the verge of tears. But then she nodded curtly. "Of course I will."

Hurley nodded, eyes lowered. "Cool. Thanks. I didn't know if you'd be cool with doing stuff to do with dead people and stuff so soon after…"

"Everyone who's died on this island deserves to be remembered," Claire said firmly. "Maybe it makes us sad crossing them off the list because it means really admitting that they're gone. But at least then…"

"At least then we're remembering them," Hurley agreed. "And stuff."

Claire was silent for a long moment, thoughtful and then she reached out and touched the crumpled paper where Charlie's name had been.

"We should write down how they died too," she offered finally, her voice trembling slightly. "And when. So that we don't forget." Hurley met her eyes and offered her a small smile. Claire didn't smile back as she intimated that Hurley should hand the piece of paper to her, "Maybe we can do that now – together?"

"Sure," Hurley swallowed back his grief and handed her the flight manifest. "Do you need to borrow a pen?"


End file.
